The King Who Would See Paradise

Once there was a king who went out hunting and came upon a fakir, a holy man, sitting alone in a lonely spot in the mountains. The fakir sat on a little old bed frame with a patched cloak around his shoulders, reading the Koran.

The king asked him what he was reading. “I am reading about Paradise,” said the fakir, “and praying that I may be worthy to go there.”

They began to talk, and after a while the king asked the fakir to show him a glimpse of Paradise. “I find it very hard to believe in something I cannot see,” he said.

The fakir told him that this was a difficult thing to ask, and perhaps a dangerous one. He would pray for the king, and perhaps one day he could do it. But he warned him to beware of his doubt, and of the curiosity that made him ask. The king would not change his mind. He promised to send the fakir food for the rest of his life if the fakir would pray for him, and the fakir agreed. So they parted.

Time went by. The king kept his promise and sent food to the old fakir. But whenever he sent a messenger to ask when he would be shown Paradise, the answer was always the same: “Not yet, not yet!”

A year or two later, the king heard that the fakir was very ill, and people thought he was dying. He rode off at once and found that it was true. The fakir was taking his last breaths. The king begged him to keep his promise.

“Come to my funeral,” said the dying man. “When the grave has been filled in and everyone else has gone, come and lay your hand on the grave. Then I will keep my word and show you a glimpse of Paradise.” But he also pleaded with the king not to do it, and to be content to see Paradise when God called him there. The king’s curiosity was too strong. He would not give way.

So after the fakir died and was buried, the king stayed behind when all the others left. When he was quite alone, he stepped forward and laid his hand on the grave. At once the ground opened. Peering in, the astonished king saw a flight of rough steps, and at the bottom sat the fakir on his rickety bed frame, reading the Koran just as he always had.

At first the king was too frightened to do anything but stare. Then the fakir beckoned to him, and, gathering his courage, the king stepped down into the grave.

The fakir stood up, signed to the king to follow, and walked a few steps along a dark passage. Then he stopped, turned to the king, and with a sweep of his hand drew aside something like a heavy curtain. What the king saw behind it, no one knows. He never told anyone. But when the fakir let the curtain fall and the king turned to go, he had had his glimpse of Paradise. Shaking all over, he stumbled back along the passage and up the steps into the fresh air.

Dawn was breaking. That seemed strange to the king. Surely he had only been gone a few minutes. And what had he seen? He searched his memory, but he could not recall a single thing. Everything around him looked odd, too. Even his own city seemed changed as he walked into it. The sun was up by the time he passed through the palace gate and into the great hall where the king held court.

The hall was full of people, and on the throne sat another king. Bewildered, the old king sat down and stared around him. A court official came over and asked him why he was sitting in the king’s presence without permission.

“But I am the king!” he cried.

“What king?” asked the official.

“The true king of this country!”

The official went and spoke to the king on the throne, and the old man caught words like “mad,” “old” and “pity.” Then he was called forward. As he went, he saw himself reflected in a guard’s polished steel shield, and he jumped back in horror. He was old, bent, dirty and ragged, with a long, tangled white beard hanging over his chest. Only one sign of royalty was left to him: the signet ring on his right hand. He pulled it off with shaking fingers and held it up.

“Tell me who I am,” he cried. “Here is my seal. I sat where you are sitting only yesterday!”

The king looked at him kindly and studied the ring. Then he sent for the dusty old records of the kingdom and for coins from earlier reigns, and they were carefully compared. At last he turned to the old man. “There was a king who used this seal,” he said, “but he reigned seven hundred years ago. It is said that he vanished, and no one knows where he went. Where did you get this ring?”

Then the old man beat his breast and cried out in grief. He understood what had happened as judgment for refusing to wait to see Paradise. Without a word he turned, left the hall, and went into the jungle. There he lived a life of prayer for twenty-five years, until at last the Angel of Death came and gently set him free.

Where this tale comes from

Andrew Lang printed this tale in The Orange Fairy Book (1906), one of the twelve coloured fairy books that he edited with his wife, Leonora, who did much of the retelling. A note at the end says it is “a Pathan story told to Major Campbell,” using the collection’s historical regional attribution. The note gives no named individual teller.

The idea of a visit to another world that eats up a whole lifetime appears in many countries. Readers may know a similar shape from the Japanese tale of Urashima Taro or from Rip Van Winkle.

Read the original: Andrew Lang, ed., The Orange Fairy Book (Project Gutenberg #3027)

Reading guidance: For ages 9–12 with an adult. The tale includes a grave visit, the loss of everyone the king knew through a seven-hundred-year time shift, and his eventual death.

A closer reading

The central sight is withheld from both audience and visitor: he cannot describe or even remember what lay behind the curtain. The tale makes the cost visible instead—an unfamiliar city, a changed body and a throne occupied by someone else. The reader shares his loss of a usable explanation rather than receiving a picture of Paradise.

The signet ring bridges private memory and public evidence. His insistence that he ruled yesterday is not enough; records and old coins establish the seven-hundred-year gap. The new ruler’s willingness to investigate also contrasts with simply dismissing the stranger as confused.

The king interprets the loss as punishment within the story’s religious framework. Readers may question that severity while noticing that the fakir repeatedly warns him about the risk. The point can be discussed as limits to control and readiness, without making doubt or curiosity wrong in every setting.

Try this with the story

Make two timelines: the king’s apparent few minutes and the city’s seven hundred years. Place the curtain, dawn, shield, ring and records on the appropriate stages. Explain which objects reveal the change and why the missing memory prevents the visit from satisfying his original demand for knowledge.

Think about it

• Why did the fakir warn the king not to ask to see Paradise?
• How did the king find out how much time had passed?
• Do you think the king’s punishment was fair? Why or why not?

Related stories

• The Story Of Urashima Taro, The Fisher Lad — another tale of a short visit to another world that lasts for years
• The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate — another king from the same storytellers who tries to bend fate
• Wali Dad the Simple-Hearted — another tale from Lang’s fairy books set in northern India